


An Unexpected Visit

by wildraspberrie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27684134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildraspberrie/pseuds/wildraspberrie
Summary: The Doctor encounters a new friend and messes with time a little. He's not even sorry.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21
Collections: Public Call - Doctor Who fic exchange 2020





	An Unexpected Visit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paynesgrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paynesgrey/gifts).



The Doctor’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he stepped out of the TARDIS. He took a deep breath and focused inwardly, watching in his mind’s eye as timelines flickered past, then settled with finality. Early July, 2008.

“Hmm.” He firmly shut the door and stuffed his hands into his pockets, then took off in a random direction. Something wasn’t right here. His time senses were tight and itchy, which meant he was somewhere he shouldn’t be. But that wasn’t the something wrong, if his ship had any say in it.

“We were going to Balastrad, Old Girl,” he mumbled. “Why’d you bring us somewhere you know we’re not supposed to be?” He stopped walking and turned to look back at his ship. He pointed sternly and continued, “You’re supposed to be the responsible one in this relationship, you know.”

She hummed deeply, something smug that was laced deeply with fear and urgency, then went silent. The Doctor watched as her top light faded and the door windows went black. She’d powered completely down.

So... something she wanted changed. Any other time, any other Doctor, and he’d have fought harder. But he was tired of losing, tired of the pain. The slight itchiness of the time around him was a very strong indicator that he was about to change his own timeline. The future, if he was correct. He didn’t remember being here, though that didn’t mean anything with the entirety of his eighth body.

Sighing, the Doctor set off again, only looking back once at the Old Girl, and despite himself, excitement bubbled up inside. Maybe he’d see Rose again. Maybe that was it! She’d be a few years older since he’d seen her a week ago, back in that alley, with the scaredy mouse clinging to her waist and flaring up her responsibility instincts. Maybe now, her mum and that boy are taking care of themselves and she was a bit more free to do as she pleased.

A daft grin spread across his face and a spring entered his step. He walked for about fifteen minutes when he spotted her. She was swinging lazily on a swing, an exasperated expression on her face, as the woman next to her - her mum, if he remembered her clearly - chattered in her ear.

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor straightened, ran his hands over his hair, and took a step forward - only to halt when his step brought him passed the corner of the building and he spotted his TARDIS sitting on the grungy tarmac of the estate. The doors were open and the bronze-tinted light spilled out, elongating a shadow as someone approached the door. The Doctor ducked quickly behind the corner, only sticking his head out far enough to see.

A tall, skinny man with ridiculously good, gravity-defying hair and a brown pinstripe suit paired with plimsolls danced out of the ship. On his back rested an odd pack of some kind, with a long tube-like thing attached to its side. He smiled at Rose and shuffled backward, saying, “Who you gonna call?”

Rose hopped up and down, big, bright smile on her face, and shouted, “Ghostbusters!”

They broke down laughing to the obvious irritation of Rose’s mum. She crossed her arms and glared at them. “Honestly, Doctor, you’re nearly a thousand years old. Can’t you ever behave like it?”

The man, himself apparently, straightened and turned his entire attention onto the woman, mischief clear on his face. He winked at Rose and said, “Where’s the fun in that?”

Rose giggled and it filled the past Doctor with euphoria. He closed his eyes and searched out the timelines again. Since it hadn’t happened yet, it was easier to see her own. He sighed, in confusion and satisfaction, as his sense told him that she started traveling with him in this old, battered body. And she’d stayed after a regeneration!

So maybe the Old Girl hadn’t brought him here to change anything, just to alleviate his sadness. Clearly, he needed to go back. Not that he ever did, but Rose was... she was special. Smiling, he headed back to his ship, ready to pilot Her back to that alley, when his brain caught on to the swift, jagged break of his and Rose’s timelines. Today. A soft hum, weak but there, echoed in the back of his mind.

She’d brought him here for this, to stop himself from losing Rose. Hearts stuttering in his chest, the Doctor turned and jogged back to his corner, peaking around. His future self was crouched on the ground next to three orange cones, yelling into the TARDIS to Rose. Something ghostly flickered into existence inside the triangulation - something big and nasty looking. The Doctor narrowed his eyes and popped back behind the building.

It wasn’t ideal to be dropped into the middle of a problem. Certainly not ideal when he was supposed to save someone and he didn’t know from what. He could stalk them. He started to turn thoughtfully. Stick as close to Rose as possible, maybe—

“Gah!”

The Doctor jumped back as Rose came into view, her eyes wide and mouth open. The air tightened like a noose around the Doctor’s neck and the timelines pulsed in warning. The Doctor felt an instinctive itch to run, but he’d already lost too much and he wasn’t going to lose Rose only just after getting her.

“Doctor?”

A wide grin spread across his face and the Doctor exclaimed, “Rose! Hello!” She continued to stare, an expression crossing her face that the Doctor couldn’t quite quantify. He froze for a few seconds and then jammed his hand into his pocket, pulling out a banana. “Banana?”

Rose glanced at the fruit quickly, but then her eyes zeroed in on his face. She opened her mouth more fully, likely about to say something, but was cut off by a distant shout, in an accent somewhat similar to her own Cockney. “Rose!”

She glanced back at his future self, then back at his current body, confusion clouding her face. The Doctor put his finger on his lips, shushing Rose before any words could come out, then jerked his head to away from the Powell Estates. Rose’s brows furrowed and she glanced back at himself again, caution in every line of her body. But there was that spark of trouble and curiosity in her eyes that had drawn the Doctor to her in the first place, and he knew she’d follow him.

“Give me a mo’, Doctor! I’m gonna ask this... gent over here if he’s seen anything that might help us!” She winced, her mouth set into a grimace at the rather flimsy excuse she’d given him.

But a moment passed and his future self called back, “That’s what I love about you, Rose Tyler! The domestic approach!”

The Doctor watched as she released a gusty sigh and rolled her eyes, a fond smile spreading across her face. She looked up at him and commented, “Sometimes, I don’t know if that’s a backhanded compliment or just an outright insult, yeah?”

He grinned. “Oh, insult, every time, you stupid ape.”

Rose snorted and then, sending shock waves down the Doctor’s spine, threw her arms around him and held on tightly. He held stock still before that ever present urge that had haunted him from the moment he’d caught her off that chain surged up inside him; his arms wrapped around her rather like a constrictor snake and he buried his nose in her hair.

As old as he was, he was aware becoming so attached in such a short time might have ‘co-dependency’ written all over it, but then again, co-dependency wasn’t really all that bad, in his opinion. Just two halves deciding to make a whole of it. Rose pulled back before he was ready, but he let her go.

She smiled up at him, her eyes a little misty, and asked, “You off on one of your jaunts while I’m at mum’s?” The Doctor’s eyebrows hit his hairline and Rose tilted her head questioningly. 

“Ah. Well, you see, Rose... you said no.”

Rose blinked. Then she gasped and jerked back, eyes wide with horror. Frantically, the Doctor shot forward and grasped Rose’s arms, shushing her frantically. There’s was no telling where his pinstriped self was.

“Right. I can see that you can see that I’m not exactly supposed to be here. I don’t particularly want to know why your first reaction was extreme horror, but I guess I’ll find out one day. As it is, we don’t have much time. I really, really shouldn’t be here, but the Old Girl was insistent.”

Rose stared up at him, worry glinting restlessly in her eyes, but she nodded. Her hands gripped his own again and that calm, warm feeling that had sparked again on first meeting her flooded back. It intensified with the way she looked at him, like she loved him, which in turn terrified and comforted him. He shivered.

Her hazel eyes glinted with, if the Doctor wasn’t mistaken, a glitter of gold. Her tremulous smile made his hearts beat a slightly frantic tune. Not for the first time, the Doctor was nearly breathless with her beauty. He swallowed and ducked his head.

“Right. What we’re doing is going to go wrong. Or it’ll go right, but I’ll lose you.” He glanced up at Rose’s pained gasp. He squeezed her hands gently. “The Old Girl brought me here to stop it.”

Rose’s cheeks pinked and her eyes lit up, her bright smile bursting out. Something flickered in her eyes, a knowing or a ‘finally’ or an ‘a-ha’.

“What do I need to do?”

The Doctor breathed deeply and wrenched himself out of his stare at her eyes. Then paused. “Ah.” He paused again.

Rose waited a beat, then another. As she did, her eyebrows rose higher and higher. Then, “Ah?”

The Doctor released on of her hands and scratched his chin. “Yeah, ah. She didn’t exactly... fill me in.” Rose’s eyes widened, disbelief pooling. “She sort of just... landed, then powered down. I didn’t even know I was crossing a future timeline of mine until I was quite a ways away from my ship.”

A chortle erupted from Rose and she shook her head. Disbelief turned into... a knowing amusement and the Doctor wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be offended, relieved, or a mingling of both at that. Clearly, he was going to have a bit of trouble with the obvious this go round. He resolutely ignored the London Eye incident. That’s just salt in the recently dealt wound.

Releasing Rose completely, the Doctor shoved his hands deeply into his pockets and wracked his brain. The TARDIS wouldn’t bring him all the way here without a plan, so... the Doctor tipped his head. His left hand fingers were tangled in something he knew he hadn’t put into his pockets. He ran them over the thing, feeling the material. Some sort of webbing.

He pulled it out of his pocket and came face to face with a mountaineering harness, one of the ones from Durabont Pyrexis. Their spiders there made the strongest silk in the Milky Way galaxy and he’d gone there shortly after Rose had declined.

“Ah!”

Rose laughed at the new inflection and the Doctor joined in for a moment, before he felt the timelines tighten even further. Sobering, he handed the harness to Rose and then shoved his hands into each pocket again. He came back out with a bag of carabiners and a bundle of Durabontian spider silk rope.

Rose grabbed all of it tightly to her chest and looked at him, her eyes dimming a little. The Doctor smiled lightly. “I trust you know how to use that or this entire exercise will have been futile.”

Rose smiled. “We’ve gone climbing lots of times. I’m quite the dab hand at it now.” She looked down at the equipment. “Why’s it gotta be like this? If she brought you to help, couldn’t you... help?”

The Doctor grinned. “Not recommended when you’re changing your personal future. I don’t know what happens to you and I’m only giving you something to help you. Minimizes the chance of paradoxes.” He looked his fill of her, a crooked grin on his face. “The rest is up to you.”

Rose sighed, then looked back down at the stuff. She burst out with a deep breath, then looked at him wryly. “You got a bag or somethin’?”

He shrugged. “Nope!”

Rose rolled her eyes with a smile. “So I’ve got to get my own, eh? Some hero you are.” She bumped her shoulder against his as he chuckled.

He stared at her for a moment more before the timelines vibrated. Shaking himself out of it, he took a reluctant step back. “It’s time for me to go back to your past, Rose Tyler.”

She took him in for a long moment, then, as he took another step back, dropped her handful and launched herself at him. She gripped him by the ears and yanked his lips down to hers. It started out chaste, but then she shoved her tongue against his lips and he parted them on a gasp. Her taste flooded his mouth, of dark chocolate and mint and, intriguingly, of Time.

And then it was over. She released him and he stumbled back a bit, knees a bit wobbly and head a bit fuzzy. He blinked a few times to help focus on her face and encountered her smug grin.

“Just so’s I can have a memory with this face that’s not muddled, yeah?”

The comment made no sense, but the Doctor nodded lethargically. Rose giggled, which knocked him out of his daze and he glared at her. He started backward, eyes trained on Rose for as long as it took for him to get to the other side of the building, then he turned. An excited grin spread across his daft face and he shoved his hands back into his pockets.

As he was turning the corner, he heard her once more. “Doctor!” He looked back. Rose had the gear clutched in her arms again and a mischievous smile played at her lips. “You didn’t tell me she travels in time!”

Then she laughed her big, hearty laugh and ran off toward his future. He turned again, whistling a tune. He embedded her last comment in his mind and, just before he tucked away this encounter, let out a deep belly laugh. He may not last long in this body, but tell ya what? He was going to have a fantastic year. 


End file.
